Ramesh's attack against Stern comes in reaction to a lecture of the UK ex-official, famous for his Stern review of climate change economics, that justified why India should take unprecedented levels of emission cuts as part of the Copenhagen deal.

The now famous Stern Review of 2006, commissioned by the UK government, had also found no takers in India when he claimed that it would not hurt Indian economy to take on strong greenhouse gas emission caps.

Now Ramesh has taken the fight to another level, writing to Stern, "The strong sense of preservation of economic advantage and maintenance of high standards of living in the developed countries is the only reason why Kyoto Protocol has failed."

Taking a swipe at rich nations and Stern, asking India and other developing countries to take strong emission cuts, Ramesh said, "Twenty years later we are now talking about developing countries having to help out the strong and capable (rich countries) in compensating for their actions (that led to the climate crisis)."

Blasting holes in Stern's projection that India's per capita emissions would rise to 12 tonnes by 2030, Ramesh pointed out that studies in India showed that the number was more in the range of 4-7 tonnes per capita — well below even existing developed world levels. "No economist in the world has projected a rising share of India in energy supplies from 3.7% to 15% or more in 2030," Ramesh pointed out. Stern had, in the lecture delivered in UK, demanded that India would have to reduce its emissions by a factor of 2 over the next 20 years because its emissions were bound to rise to such disproportionate levels.

Pointing out the limitation of the 'Stern proposal', Ramesh questioned his belief that market alone would provide resources to poor countries to cope with the costs of reducing emissions. Ramesh also pointed out out holes in the UK economist's proposal claiming they are blind to the fact that rich countries have so far reneged on their promises to take strong short-term emission reduction targets.